


we keep meeting.

by bluecarrot



Category: Hamilton - Miranda
Genre: Alternate Universe - Reincarnation, Hamburr, M/M, Reincarnation, Soulmates, THAT IS JUST HOW THESE THINGS WORK, altho it is literally my religion so not exactly an AU for me, dont follow in my footsteps kids, murder and also love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-31
Updated: 2018-07-31
Packaged: 2019-06-17 04:22:59
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 989
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15453252
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bluecarrot/pseuds/bluecarrot
Summary: they meet againand againand again, don't they?





	we keep meeting.

**Author's Note:**

> posted for the occasion of 28 july 2018; written a couple days before
> 
> sort of an addendum to "the other side of the war".

When Burr shoots and kills Hamilton, he is hounded by it for the rest of his life -- lives.

It doesn’t bother him much, that first time, except that no one _else_ can let it go. “We went there to duel,” he complains to Theo, who nods sympathetically. “Besides, he shot at me, too. It isn’t _my_ fault he missed.”

All of these things are true: and yet.

 _You’re a monster,_ people tell him. His aunt wails that he’s going to hell, as if this were the deciding factor, as if Hamilton is the only person Burr has shot, as if he wasn’t a philanderer and an adulterer and a lawyer in the bargain.

 _Don’t worry,_ he tells her. _He and I will meet again in heaven._

 

 

They do.

Although it is not exactly heaven and they are not exactly themselves —

 

 

— except in essentials. And it turns out that even essentials might shift. Alexander always has beautiful eyes, but they might be golden or green or snapping, angry black, shouting obscenities from under a picket sign.

Burr sees him on the news and for a second he thinks —

 

 

— “I should buy you a drink,” and Burr walks his new friend to the bodega for the finest slushee anyone has ever made. He puts it on a credit card, knowing he can’t afford the minimum payment.

Alex has the fine hands of a pianist, he has the mouth of an alley whore, and when Burr shoots him it is intentional. Street warfare. He lets the gun drop. _I must speak to him,_ he thinks, it's the echo of a thought: but Alex is already dead and soon Burr is too, and

 

 

“Give him some space to sit down, that would be nice.”

So the other children shift over and Burr sets his lunch tray down on the table and fits his body on the uncomfortable plastic bench seat, awkwardly fitted into the too-small space. _Awkward_ and _uncomfortable_ don't cover it all: he's the new kid, the one who doesn’t have anyone to sit with, the one who talks with a stutter - the miraculous speech he used to possess stripped from him, a fine-honed karmic cruelty. No one listens to him at all; no one cares, what could he have to say, after all, this boy who spends twenty seconds on _Hello._

No one listens to him: but Alexander does.

And Burr is able to speak to Alexander. Not much, and it comes out slowly — it _hurts_  — it makes his side ache with tension, he is still halting and unsure.

Alex waits for it.

It is a good life. They grow older, they stay friends. Better things almost seem possible.

One night they are talking, laughing, stupid with youth, and Alexander kisses Burr.

It happens so quickly that it’s over before the sensation can register as more than _heat_ and  _pressure_ , and maybe Burr would respond but Alex is acting like it didn’t happen, and —

Two months later they are bickering about nothing really, they're bickering all the time now, there is a new tension between them, and Alexander is in one of his _moods._ He says “Do you know what I’ve been thinking of lately?”

What.

“This,” taking his mother's handgun out from his bookbag. “I could bring it to school —“

Burr is appalled, he feels cold and sick, the long-gone stutter comes back -- “You’d get expelled, you shouldn’t have it at all, put it _away_ —“

“Relax,” says Alex. “It isn’t even loaded. See?”

He's wrong.

 

 

The worst lives — the worst times — are not when Burr shoots him (although he does so often, as though that one act was more weighted than all their others -- shooting him again and again -- now a needle slipped in a vein and again and again with a gun, always always with anger and aching and love between them) 

 

 

\-- the worst times are when Alex won’t even acknowledge him. When Burr has to blow every member of the football team just to get Alex’s hands on his head, to get Alexander’s eyes — those eyes! — looking at him with soft fondness.

 _He doesn’t even know you exist,_  Bellamy had said. Well, he knows now.

It doesn’t make any difference. Alex doesn’t dump Elizabeth Schuyler no matter how many other girls go down on him, and he doesn’t even nod at Burr when they pass in the hallway, and — perhaps most humiliatingly — he turns down Burr's offer of another go around.

 

 

“Pardon me — Sir!” -- and a lithe young man jogs down the block with a clipboard. “Did I miss you — did you hear me? I said —“

“I don’t give to causes and I am happy with my choice of deity,” says Burr. “Thank you.”

The youth flushes. “This is a _survey._ ”

“Even worse.”

“I’m a SUNY student, and —“

“And I’m late.” Burr doesn’t know why he stopped at all, he shouldn’t have stopped, but those eyes —

“— and this is my _thesis,_  it's my _dissertation,_ I have to collect —“

“I’m really not interested —“

“— on the habits of —“

“Stop,” says Burr: and when that doesn’t quell the tide he puts a hand on the other man’s mouth though immediately of course he pulls back (what was he _thinking?_ ) -- and what _is_ he thinking? because in the brief space while the young man is too dumbfounded to speak, Burr says: “Can I offer you some free advice? Talk. Less.”

Sulk. Pout goes the bottom lip. It shouldn’t be as distracting as it is. “I need data.”

“What you _need_ is a different approach.”

A huff.

Burr considers the possibilities of that mouth. “Can I buy you a ...”

“Shawarma? I’m starving. There’s one just up Broadway a couple of blocks.”

“It'll be overpriced,” says Burr.

“Tasty, though. And since you’re buying, ...” A shrug.

“You’ve got a lot of confidence,” says Burr. “Maybe too much. You’re a student?”

“Yeah. My name’s —“

“Alex,” says Burr. “You’re Alex. I know. I was looking for you.”

**Author's Note:**

> Burr's aunt did in fact tell him he was going to hell for shooting Hamilton; and he did laugh at her and say "don't worry, we'll meet again in heaven."  
> I love him.
> 
> *
> 
> “I saw him just up Broadway a coupla blocks - he was goin’ to see a play” is one of my favorite favorite lines and i have been trying to use it in a fic for two years and finally did HAH
> 
> *
> 
> catch me obsessing over comma placement on tumblr  
> @littledeconstruction


End file.
